Bruce Momjian <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
> Tom Lane wrote:
>> Not unless you are proposing to change COPY to acquire a lock strong
>> enough to lock out other writers to the table for the duration ...
> Well, if the table is initally empty, what harm is there in locking the
> table?
You cannot *know* whether it is empty unless you lock the table before
you look. So your argument is circular.
I think this only makes sense as an explicit option to COPY, one of the
effects of which would be to take a stronger lock than COPY normally does.
regards, tom lane